Because even though it’s October and I’m writing about Living Local for 31 days straight, it’s also Friday, and I’m learning to find my place in a local online community of gifted writers who let it all fly free for Five Minute Friday. We’re linking up over at Lisa Jo’s where she writes truth and we all share grace. And lots of comment love.
Write
I think it’s all I ever really wanted to do. Move my pen across the paper and create a world I could dive into at a moment’s notice and leave behind the struggles that might be real. A world where life was always perfect and there was always conflict that could be resolved and I had all the answers.
Except that’s not what I do now. What I do now is process the here and the where and the why into short snippets of life stories that are told in early morning between coffee warming and teeth brushing and find-the-lost-library-book chaos of real life.
There is no perfect novel with all conflict neatly approaching its anticipated climax and then descending into an understanding resolution that makes you want to find out more but leaves you content with where it lands.
I write about the local of where I am. About making breakfast and messing up and meeting mothers and directing plays and chaperoning field trips and holding my friends when they cry. I write about the local of who I am and where I am on this little space in the big world of the internet and in the flesh and ink print of my local paper.
I tell my story and the stories of those I break bread with at tables crowded with toddlers.
Today I’m a local writer. But maybe tomorrow I’ll finish another story that keeps me grounded here and lets me fly out there.
Lindsey P. Brackett 